Digits Rewind: First Transoceanic Telegram

7/17/2013 5:15AM

India’s telegraph services fell silent this month after 163 years, pushed aside by the likes of email and cellphones. Historian Jay Walker recalls the history of the Trans-Atlantic cable, a 19th-century marvel that for the first time carried a message across an ocean instantaneously—well, almost.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... I ... six ... years ... it's Telegraph's this is the fifth of July yes it did still have one but it makes business sense ... with the rise of the email and cell phones ... last night in the Telegraph of the for profit but that they need to ... be more than twenty years ago in this business we won in sensors and historian J Walker ... tickets to the story of the trans Atlantic Fleet a very very worst Telegraph ... I ... routine fifty eight after several millions of dollars in a lot of false starts to show that the first Telegraph cable coffee when it was created ... and this is a piece of that cable ... at the center are seven small wires ... the rest of this is insulation ... so the wires only weigh about seven pounds per mile ... but the insulation weighs a tonne per mile ... the first word cent were sent from Queen Victoria from London to the United States ... however because the signal was so we ... it took two minutes Percentage Beach boy ... of the message was sitting looking really weak ... the engineer in the UK ... who really didn't know he was doing insisted that high voltage be applied to the table ... which promptly melted and the insulation ... destroying the cable ... so this idea of the Telegraph which leads to a network of cellphones which the a the street ... there ... are one hundred and fifty years ... ago this ... month ...